Music seen as a bridge

People tend to make enemies of those they don't know anything about, particularly if they can attach religious or ethnic differences to their ignorance.

But music has the power to bridge differences that words alone often do not, according to members of Salt Lake's Interfaith Roundtable, who continue to foster dialogue and good will among Utahns two years after the 2002 Winter Games brought them together to host the world.

And it's more than simply a spiritual connection, according to Jerold Ottley, former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, who is helping the roundtable put together its annual "Interfaith Musical Tribute to the Human Spirit," to be held Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The event is one of two public gatherings sponsored by the group in honor of Interfaith Week in Utah, which runs through Sunday.

During a press conference Tuesday, Ottley said music reaches the deepest part of the human soul.

"The world of new physics tells us more directly than ever before that we are literally beings of vibration, that our whole existence involves vibration," Ottley said. "Music plays into that because it is vibration of a particular sort," making a shared musical event meaningful because it is both "a physical and a spiritual experience" that "allows us to come together in community."

Traveling the globe with the world-famous choir, Ottley said he saw music bridge barriers of language, ethnicity, geography and politics on a regular basis.

"It took me a long time to understand that it's because music gets to the nature of our being more quickly than many other things can," he said.

That's one reason he's involved in the annual interfaith concert, which will include performances from groups as diverse as a Jewish Klezmer band, Cambodian temple dancers, the Skylark Choir from Moscow, a Christian gospel choir and Native American traditional flute music.

The music will be interspersed with devotional readings from leaders representing Buddhist, Presbyterian, Baha'i, LDS and Gnostic faiths. Last year's event drew some 3,500 people, and organizers are hoping to fill the Tabernacle with people who have yet to experience the goodwill they say is generated by such an event.

Those who see the Tabernacle as a "stuffed shirt" kind of place will likely be pleasantly surprised, Ottley said.

"If they think that, they haven't been on Temple Square very much. There's lots of things that go on there that are 'unstuffy,' " he said, noting Olympic performances, a U.S. gospel choir convention and the variety scheduled for Sunday's concert.

Another forum organizers hope Utahns will participate in is scheduled for tonight at 7 in the Salt Lake City Main Library's fourth floor meeting room. Roundtable members Roger Keller, religious studies chair at Brigham Young University; Shuaib-ud Din, Imam of the Khadeeja Mosque in West Valley; Elaine Emmi of the Quaker community; and Jan Saeed of the Baha'i faith will form a panel discussion on "Interfaith Dialogue in a Time of Crisis."

Both events are free and open to the public, but tickets are required for the concert. They are available at the LDS Conference Center ticket office or on the Internet at www.lds.org/events/info.

E-mail: carrie@desnews.com

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